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Robin Hood as you have never met him before….

Was Robin Hood real? Or a fantasy? J.P. Reedman’s Robin is definitely fantasy. More than that, he is fantasy that becomes entangled with horror. The title, ROBIN HOOD – VAMPIRE LORD prepares you for what follows, when the Robin we all know and love falls victim to the vampire Abbess of Kirklees, who wants him as her mate into eternity. Except that she neglects to ask him if this is what he wants too, and simply goes ahead to prey upon him anyway. Only too successfully. Before he knows it, Robin is one of the undead. And he hates himself, even as he struggles against his vile new need for blood. For him, the death of others is now the only way to preserve his own life, but the very idea revolts him. Can he fight against the dreadful fate bestowed upon him by the False Abbess? From somewhere he finds the strength to defy her, and his punishment is to be incarcerated in a stone coffin, so that soon, to the world outside, he is but a memory . . . and then a timeless legend. But Robin lives on, undead and buried, and awakens in a strange land, where Vlad the Impaler, Dracula, is the prince. Robin soon discovers he has a very eerie affinity with Vlad. I will not say more about this unusual story, except that it is Robin Hood as you have never met him before. If you have a fancy for Robin Hood of the Otherworld, this is definitely for you.

Now I like a good spooky story, especially when Hallowe’en is in the air. So, hoping for some hairs to stand on end, I took my Kindle with me on a recent break at 14th-century Dartington Hall in Devon. Come dusk, I went alone into the empty great hall, where every step echoes, and the sounds of the rest of the building are muffled. Then I became immersed in this shiversome story of vampires and the true eternity of Robin Hood. Hmm, all very well and good to give myself the heebie-jeebies, but afterwards I had to get from the great hall, along the screens passage and out beneath the porch to . . . .the wide, dark courtyard, where the lights of the lodgings on either side shone through the night. Suddenly it was a l-o-n-g way to the East Wing, my husband and the safety of our room.